A strong focus on primary and preventative care helps ensure that children, women, and seniors are healthy, productive and happy; and a healthy Commonwealth is good for the bottom line. Instead, Governor Corbett cut the Adult Basic Program, taking basic coverage away from thousands of Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens, and now he is trying to limit access to care for all Pennsylvanians.

Trying to write-off the health of our citizens as an unnecessary expense is a step backwards that we cannot afford, and I will fight against attempts to put conservative ideology above making our citizens well. No one should have to be forced to decide between paying for necessary medication or their grocery bill.

Moreover, the current legislative assault on women’s health is unconscionable and frightening. With no basis in science or reason, the far right attack on women must end now. I will fight to not only protect current access to care and reproductive health services, but I will fight hard to expand them. Pennsylvania lagged far behind the nation on women’s health, even before the recent steps backwards, and now we must fight to bring that care into the 21st century.